PrairiePundit

 Breitbart: Over 7,000 Women in Germany Have Been Raped or Sexually Assaulted by Asylum Seeking Migrants Since 2015: Report It is looking like a sexual pervert invasion in Germany.  It would be interesting to know whether these asylum seekers in Germany are Muslims who have contempt for non-Muslim women. Here is a clue: ... While the fact that around 70 per cent of all asylum-seeking migrants in Germany are young males likely plays a role in their overrepresentation in sex assault figures, however, Koopmans noted that certain regions are overrepresented within this group, including Syrians, Afghanis, and Pakistanis, all of whom come from societies in which women are not afforded the same rights as in Western nations. ...

 Fox News: Florida family uses Apple AirTag to locate stolen luggage from a North Carolina airport to suspect's home This is another interesting use of the Apple devices.  I recently posted how a store owner used them to find items that had been shoplifted.  I suspect the stores could save more than the cost of stolen items by using them and finding and prosecuting the thieves would become much easier and thereby deter future thefts.

 Yahoo News: The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a massive drone attack on Russian military facilities across Russia on the night of Dec. 30, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported , citing sources in the special services. According to Suspilne, over 70 drones were used in the attack, with explosions occurring in Moscow, Belgorod, Tula, and Tver. A group of drones also targeted Bryansk’s Kremniy El, a major microelectronics manufacturer for Russian military equipment, including long-range missiles and Pantsyr air defense systems. Read also: Freedom of Russia Legion claims successful raid on Belgorod Oblast Although Russian air defense systems managed to shoot down some of the drones, a significant number were able to effectively hit their targets. "Unlike Russian terrorist attacks on the territory of Ukraine, the Security and Defense Forces have exclusively hit enemy military targets," the sources said. ... Apparently, many Russians are already fed up with Putin'...

 CNN: Chinese spy balloon used US internet provider to communicate its location ... CNN was not able to identify the internet service provider. CNN has previously reported that officials said the balloon was capable of communicating with Beijing as it traveled across the US. NBC News first reported that the balloon used a US network to communicate with Beijing. The network connection was not used to transmit intelligence back to China, according to the official. The balloon stored that information for later, including imagery and other data, which the US has since been able to study after shooting it down in February. The FBI and the Director of the Office of National Intelligence declined to comment. CNN has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington. China has continued to maintain that the balloon was a weather balloon that blew off course. The US assessed at the time that the spy balloon was part of an extensive surveillance program run by the Chinese military, CNN has ...

 Washington Examiner: Frustration over the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis has been growing bipartisan, with a Democratic mayor of a Texan city on the border with Mexico expressing his frustration with President Joe Biden . Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas complained to CNN that his city was getting "slammed" with 2,000 to 3,000 immigrants a day, adding that the city felt abandoned by the government. "It's just an unfair, unethical situation, what's going on here in Eagle Pass," Salinas said. "We feel ignored by the federal government." ... Salinas's complaint comes as a growing number of Democratic leaders from all over the country voice their frustration with Biden's border policy. Recently, mayors of large Democratic cities, such as New York City, Washington, and Chicago, have had to deal with busloads of immigrants being sent to their cities by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX). New York City Mayor Eric Adams has perh...

 CNBC: Muslim leaders announced on Saturday that they are going national with an effort to dissuade voters from reelecting President Joe Biden in 2024 due to his failure to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. The #AbandonBiden campaign officially began earlier in December, led by Muslim leaders in swing states like Michigan, Minnesota and Arizona, who disapproved of Biden’s support for Israel’s counterattacks against Hamas. The counterattacks have come at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. Now, the coalition intends to expand the pressure campaign to all 50 states. “We will save America from itself, by punishing Biden at the ballot box,” said lead organizer Jaylani Hussein in a statement. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The coalition plans to endorse an independent presidential candidate, Hussein told CNBC. He added that the campaign does not support former President Donald Trump, the current Republican frontrunner, ...

 American Action News: A Daily Caller News Foundation reporter highlighted a 15-month backlog in the FBI’s DNA testing of migrants during a Friday Newsmax appearance. DCNF Investigative Reporter Jennie Taer reviewed emails obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where officials discussed the massive backlog while trying to respond to a Washington Post reporter. FBI Director Christopher Wray had previously raised concerns about whether the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) could handle the migrant surge, Voice of America reported . “I definitely didn’t expect to receive this email,” Taer told Newsmax host Carl Higbee. ... “It was actually something that a Washington Post reporter had inquired about, this DNA testing program, which basically runs these illegal migrants DNA through a system that determines whether or not they’re connected to crimes that occurred in the U.S.,” Taer continued. “A lot of state, local and federal agencies contribute to this so it’s a huge...

  Athena Thorn: ... ...  Americans have now endured three interminable years of watching Team Left fail by every measure. Our paychecks have shrunk in purchasing power by  nearly one fifth  — wealth that will never come back, because inflation is a ratchet. We've seen our beloved country swallowed up by a sea of needy at best, dangerous at worst humanity surging over America’s undefended borders —  with the help of the administration, on our dime . And we've become increasingly alarmed at the global instability that predictably arose on the watch of the weakest president in U.S. history. World War III seems almost unavoidable at this point. ... The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution  provides for removing a president  who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” That describes President Dustpuppet to a T. Of course, the amendment also spells out the players who are authorized to make this decision and the process by which it m...

 NY Post: A federal judge in Virginia on Friday dismissed a lawsuit aimed at removing former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot citing the insurrection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The complaint, filed by activists Roy Perry-Bey and Carlos Howard, alleged that Trump “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US and should therefore be disqualified from seeking the office he once occupied. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue to get Trump, 77, off the state’s primary ballot. “At least five additional federal courts have concluded that citizens attempting to disqualify individuals — including former President Trump — from participating in elections or from holding public office based on the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol lacked standing,” Brinkema wrote in her 13-page ruling. “Plaintiffs have total...

 Business Insider: As Vladimir Putin wages war against Ukraine, he faces a growing threat from within his borders: the angry relatives of Russian soldiers. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the war has only intensified in the months since. And as more Russians are sent to fight, their wives and mothers have become an increasingly powerful force of dissent, arguing that their loved ones are ill-used or deserve to return home after nearly two years of war. It's not the first time that Russian soldiers' relatives have protested and risked angering the government's powerful security establishment. During the Soviet Union, the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers played a pivotal role in publicizing dedovshchina, the practice of hazing and abusing younger, newer servicemen. The CSM "emerged as a mass movement" while Mikhail Gorbachev was president, "aimed at exposing and eradicating the violence endemic in Soviet military barracks," one scholar wrote...

 Wall Street Journal: The Israeli military has tried a variety of methods to explore Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza: robots, robot dogs and real dogs. In the dense urban battlefield of Gaza, the Israeli military has been flying these quadcopters—essentially small helicopters with four rotors—into buildings before sending in soldiers.  The small drones are just one new piece of Israel’s unmanned aerial arsenal, which military officials say has played an essential role in minimizing their casualties as they rapidly advance through a densely populated, well-fortified and extensively booby-trapped battlefield. ... Hamas is not a traditional enemy that adheres to the rules of warfare such as they are.  They hide in tunnels and other areas rather than engage in traditional offensive and defensive positions.  See also: Israeli raids in West Bank target Hamas funding Israeli forces raided foreign exchange and money transfer agencies in Ramallah and other cities in the occupied West...

 Just the News: Range anxiety: New testing finds electric vehicles fall short of EPA range estimates Nearly half of the 22 vehicles tested failed to reach their EPA-estimated ranges. ... A 2022 Consumer Reports survey found range anxiety was a reason 54% of adults in a national-representative survey said would prevent them from buying an electric vehicle.  The lack of available charging stations is also a factor, especially for long trips.  Biden's attempts to create them have so far been a bust.

 American Action News: U.S. public pensions have invested more than $68 billion in China and Hong Kong over the past three years despite the country’s struggling economy and allegations of human rights abuses, according to the bipartisan advocacy group Future Union. In total, 42 states have at least one public pension that has invested in Chinese or Hong Kong assets in the last three years, and a total of 29 out of 74 pensions have made new investments in the past year, according to a report from Future Union. From the start of 2023 through October, institutional investors have pulled out over $31 billion in stocks and bonds from the Chinese financial system, culminating in the worst outflow since 2001 as stockholders grow increasingly pessimistic about their investments amid the country’s economic uncertainty. California pensions have the most allocated to adversarial assets, with the California Public Employees Retirement System having invested more than $4.8 billion in the las...

 Inside Higher Ed: Texas Colleges Prepare for the End of DEI Eliminating multicultural centers. Adding new offices for “engagement” and “citizenship.” Dispersing DEI personnel. These are just some of the steps Texas institutions have taken ahead of the Jan. 1 launch of SB 17. Hopefully, all of these colleges and universities will return to a merit standard for their employees and students. 

 Jerusalem Post: 11 leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed in an airstrike targeting Damascus International Airport on Thursday evening, Saudi media reported the following morning. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards in eastern Syria, Nur Rashid, was injured in the airstrike, Saudi media channel Al-Hadath reported. IRGC commanders were reportedly at the airport to meet with high-ranking delegates. IRGC spokesman Sardar Ramzan Sharif denied on Friday reports that 11 of its leaders were killed in an airstrike in Damascus International Airport the night before, Iranian media quoted them as saying, as he said that such claims are "baseless." Syrian media also claimed on Thursday evening that Israel had targeted sites in southern Syria and near Damascus with airstrikes in two separate waves. Syrian air defenses were activated in the Damascus area during the strikes. The country's media quoted one Syrian military source as saying that the all...

 American Action News: Federal authorities removed an Iranian national with ties to terrorism after he tried to enter the U.S. twice via the northern border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Thursday. ICE removed the Iranian national to Canada, where he is a permanent resident and is wanted for assault charges, on Dec. 21, according to ICE. He first tried to enter the country through the Rainbow Bridge Pedestrian Walkway in Niagara Fall on Oct. 10, where he was refused entry and returned to Canadian authorities. Two days later, Border Patrol arrested the Iranian man after he illegally crossed the northern border, according to ICE. “The strong law enforcement partnership between ERO Buffalo and Canadian law enforcement authorities is imperative to increasing national security and preventing dangerous individuals from fleeing justice,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations [ERO] Buffalo Field Office Director Thomas Brophy said in a statement. “The Canadian resident’s ...

 Red State: ... With his customary flair, Kennedy zeroed in on Biden's disastrous border failures as only he can: "Kayleigh, last Saturday, President Biden blamed the media for his unpopularity. The truth is that most members of the media have tried to help him. In my state, for example, our two largest newspapers are run by members of the loon wing of the Democratic Party, and they publish accordingly. But in Louisiana, President Biden is about as popular as herpes.  Why is that? Two reasons. Number one, the people of Louisiana are not stupid. Number two, they think the Biden administration is. They think that its stupidity runs from the river to the sea.  Exhibit A is the open border. President Biden has dissolved the southern border. Our problems at the southern border are man-made, and that man’s name is Joe Biden, and the people of Louisiana and the American people know it.  Yet he blames the media for his unpopularity. It’s hard to believe that the president co...

 Breitbart: Voters perceive former President Donald Trump as the return to normalcy candidate after President Joe Biden failed to “put things back in order,” pollster and  New York Times  columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson recently wrote. Anderson’s observation highlights Biden’s failure to restore America to a state of predictable stability following  three years  of his chaotic policies: Draconian pandemic mandates Deadly Afghan withdrawal Soaring cost of living Growing instability in Ukraine and the Middle East Record high invasion on the southern border “The 2024 election will not be fought along the conventional axis of left and right or even change and more of the same,” Anderson  wrote  in the  Times . “Voters very much want change; they have made that clear with the absolutely abominable ratings they give our leadership in poll after poll.” “But instead of clamoring for someone to blow everything up, they are crying out for someone to put t...

 I&I: The Golden State’s leftist Democrat-dominated legislature loves to grandstand as a champion of the downtrodden and the working poor, even if the policies they enact end up hurting those people the most. That’s certainly the case with the state’s minimum wage hike, which is set to hit in 2024. The state will raise its overall mandated minimum-wage rate from $16 an hour to $16.50 an hour overall, starting in 2024. But some industries will get an even bigger wage shock: fast-food minimum wages go up to $20 an hour starting in April. Meanwhile, workers in the health care industry will see their minimum wage rise to $18, $21 or $23 an hour, depending on the job. It’s about time, you say? Let’s start by saying we’re not against anyone getting a raise. But raises should come from the companies themselves, not from government decrees. As study after study in recent years show, government-mandated minimum wage hikes usually hurt those they’re meant to help. It’s an irony that se...

 NY Times: At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress.” In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition, and her right hand covers her eyes. The video was shot in the early hours of Oct. 8 by a woman searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave in southern Israel where, the day before, Hamas terrorists massacred hundreds of young Israelis. The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter. One family knew exactly who she was: Gal Abdush, mother of two from a working-class town in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night with her husband. As the terrorists closed in on her, trapped on a highway in a line of cars of people trying to flee the party, she sent one final WhatsApp message to her family: “You don’t understand.” Based largely on the video ev...

 NY Times: Russia has recaptured land hard won by Ukrainian troops at the peak of their summer counteroffensive in the south, making progress around the southern village of Robotyne. The situation has reinforced the war’s latest reality: With their counteroffensive stalled, Ukrainian troops are now on the back foot in many places. Besides Robotyne in the south, they are also struggling in the east, having all but retreated from the town of Marinka, officials said this week. Deepening their challenges, Ukraine is increasingly worried that its military will not have the resources to keep up the fight. The United States announced Wednesday that it was releasing the last remaining Congress-approved package of military aid available to Ukraine. “Now we are losing some fields, but if the U.S. aid is delayed, we will begin to lose towns,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in an interview last week. ...

 AFP: Israel PM says no peace until Hamas destroyed Israel bombed Gaza on Tuesday after its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed there won't be peace until its Hamas rulers are destroyed and Palestinian society is "deradicalised". The army said it had struck more than 100 targets in 24 hours, including military sites and tunnel shafts in central Jabalia and Khan Yunis in the south, as heavy ground combat continued. The withering military campaign launched after the Hamas attacks of October 7 has caused mass civilian casualties and widespread hunger and reduced much of the coastal territory to rubble. ... What Israel is determined to do is prevent Hamas from ever having the capacity for more mass murder attacks on Israelis.  They will do what it takes to destroy the Hamas leadership not only in Gaza but also leaders of Hamas elsewhere in the Middle East. See also: Israel-Hamas war live: IDF tanks advance into central Gaza as thousands more flee And:   Freed Israeli hos...

American Action News: The Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea are threatening to disrupt U.S. and global markets with delayed shipping times and increased good prices, The Washington Post reported. The Yemen-based Houthis have launched several attacks since Oct. 7 against vessels in the Red Sea as part of retaliation efforts against Israel and its allies. In an effort to avoid the Houthis, commercial vessels are now taking longer routes to reach their destinations, resulting in delays and higher shipping costs, and ultimately increased prices for consumer goods in the U.S. and across the world, according to the Post. Major shipping companies like COSCO, Maersk and CMA CGM, as well as several fuel tankers, previously utilized major trade routes in the Red Sea that cut through Africa and Asia, according to the Post. The recent spate of Houthi attacks has forced shipping vessels to move down and around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. This new route adds thousands...

 Blaze Media: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed south to discuss illegal immigration with the Mexican regime while a migrant caravan estimated to be about at least 8,000 people deep and growing — the largest of its kind since June 2022 — marches north on the U.S. border. The prospective invaders began their advance northward Sunday, walking from Tapachula, a city near Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, to Alvaro Obregón, reported the New York Post. If successful, this group will add to the strain already experienced at the border, which sees roughly 10,000 illegal aliens storm over daily. Despite claims that the caravan comprises asylum seekers, leaders of the group made clear with a banner that read, "Exodus from poverty," that they were largely economic migrants. While most of the economic migrants appear to be from Cuba, Venezuela, El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras, the BBC indicated some also hail from Bangladesh, India, and other oriental locales. .....

 Gallop: The 32% of Americans who say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way ties Gallup’s  lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016 . Although trust in media currently matches the historical low, it was statistically similar in 2021 (36%) and 2022 (34%). Another 29% of U.S. adults have “not very much” trust, while a record-high 39% register “none at all.” This nearly four in 10 Americans who completely lack confidence in the media is the highest on record by one percentage point. It is 12 points higher than the 2016 reading, which came amid sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump -- making the current assessment of the media the grimmest in Gallup’s history. In 2016, U.S. adults were most likely to say they had “not very much” trust (41%). ... This might have something to do with it:   Study Finds That Just 3.4% of American Journalists Are Republicans...

 Secretary's of States for Dem-controlled states are starting to push the bogus claims that the January 6 demonstration was an insurrection and that Trump was a participant.  They have become the real threat to democracy in the US with their desire to deny Trump voters the ability to support him. The latest to try to thwart democracy in this matter is the Democrat Secretary of State in Maine.  She claimed that Trump encouraged violence when he actually told the crowd to act "peacefully and patriotically."  The politicians pushing this bogus claim of an insurrection apparently hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. It does look like Colorado is backing away from the opinion of its Supreme Court until at least the US Supreme Court rules on that decision.  California appears to be waffling on its attempt to thwart Trump voters in that state. Could Biden's poll numbers and clips like the one below be the real reason for Democrat desperation to get Trum...

 Just the News: FBI shocker: Agent told boss Biden laptop could be Russian disinformation, but team knew otherwise House Judiciary interviews reveal that the FBI knew Hunter Biden's laptop was "real" for a long time before it was portrayed by Biden camp and mainstream media as "Russian disinformation." ...   The FBI effort has drawn increased scrutiny because its work often was cited as a basis for censorship of news and opinion content on social media during the election.   The New York Times , for example, did not acknowledge the existence of the laptop or its contents until more than   a year after the 2020 election . The task force was one of the bodies cited by a  federal appellate court  for banning federal agencies from having censorship-related contacts with Big Tech platforms ahead of the 2024 election. The federal government continues to deny any collaboration with media in papers  filed  to the United States Supreme Court last week. ......

 Streif: ... After nearly two centuries of uninterrupted economic and population growth, California has hit a pothole in the road. There had been a lot of warning signs that the Democrats' hostility to success and achievement was coming home to roost but the first finite, undeniable warning was when California  lost a House seat  in the 2020 reapportionment. This was the first time in history that California had lost a House seat and marked the  end of a run  of gains that started with a one-seat gain in the 1860 Census and culminated in a series of 5-7 seat gains between 1910 and 1980. My colleague Ward Clark has more to say about the population shift, particularly the addition of over a hundred thousand low-skill/no-skill immigrants; see  The Exodus of Productive Citizens From California Proceeds Apace . According to the  LA Times , the pain is beginning to be felt as the outflow of high-earners (and maximum tax rate payers) is replaced by an inflow ...